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January 23, 2012

Struth! Hotels lament light-fingered guests

STRUTH!

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says light-fingered hotel guests in the UK helped themselves last year to enough goodies to start a second-hand shop – and it was anything than just soaps and toiletries.

Amongst items that the country's Best Western hotel group reported stolen by guests last year were a 20kg suit of armour, a two-piece leather sofa, a 4m-long model of the Concorde supersonic jetliner, a decorated Christmas tree, a life-size model of a man made out of papier mache, TV sets… and a cigarette machine.

Head of Marketing with the company, Tim Wade said the hotel was so proud of its soaps that it actually printed "So good you'll want to steal two" on the wrappers – but he never expected so many other large-as-life items to go as well. "Goodness knows how they got them past Reception when they checked-out," he said.

And while soaps and toiletries were still generally considered the most fair-game for pinching, many guests also helped themselves to their hotel room's energy-saving light bulbs, batteries from the TV remote controllers, towels and bathrobes – and at one Best Western in the UK a bedspread and a matching set of curtains.

"Christmas gave us a particularly busy time replacing items," Mr Wade said. "Our managers reported partying guests nicking off with a decorated Christmas tree from one hotel, a nativity scene from another, strings of Christmas lights, baubles and tinsel from yet others, and at one a whole garden bed of Christmas-time plants – including the bark chip mulch around them."